12 Ways to Reduce Staff Turnover – Tips

Staff turnover is essentially the number, expressed as a percentage, of employees that leave a company in a given period. While most of you can agree that staff turnover is a bad thing, it can alternatively be considered a good thing too.

The Impact of Staff Turnover

Financially Impactful:

Let’s put it into perspective; staff turnover, or employee turnover, can affect you as a manager financially. The loss of an existing employee puts together the loss of time, effort, and capital that was once put towards the employee, being all for…nothing. It will also mean gathering the cost of hiring and onboarding a new employee to replace the one that just left. What that ultimately means is to exhaust more time, effort and resources from the HR department, along with a new cash flow debit – being the new salary given in place.

Reputation:

Not only does staff turnover affect you financially, but it can be reputable damaging too. A constant cycle of employees leaving and your company in constant re-hiring mode builds a name for itself. What this sets out to your stakeholders, is the perception of a bad company culture – i.e. something not worthy for them to invest in. With this perception in place, you will be likely to see prospective employees and investors look elsewhere.

Re-evaluation:

On the other end of the spectrum, staff turnover (or employee turnover) can be seen as a good thing because it will give you the chance to re-evaluate your company as a whole. When I mean re-evaluate, I mean you can take a step back and see what it is that you are doing wrong. Questions such as what is it that you can do to improve? What is it that you can do to make your employees experience working at your company, worthwhile? Are the type of questions that should pop up when trying to pinpoint the problem as to why employees constantly leave.

12 Ways Reduce Employee Turnover

While it appears that employee turnover is inevitable, there are ways you can improve staff retention. At the same time, while it cannot be completely prevented, there are measures you can take to ensure it is not a huge issue in your company.

Below are 12 tips on how to reduce employee turnover:

1. Understand and practice recognition

Recognition is as easy as identifying what your employee has done and acknowledging the fact that they have done a good job. Make this process transparent for your employee to see.

2. Provide continuous feedback

For every task or activity that your employee completes, ensure you provide them feedback. This feedback should be along the lines of letting them know what they did well and what they could do to improve. Continuous feedback is what will help your employees learn, grow and stem from mistakes.

3. Foster continuous development.

A huge reason why your employees are working for you is mainly to progress in their careers. Allow your employees to continually develop by offering them constant training. Other ways you can foster continuous development is by providing on-demand support during the time they learn and practice new processes.

4. Implement recruitment best practice

A good first impression that’ll last throughout the end of time is having recruitment best practices embedded in your HR department for your recruitment and selection process. This is the stage that will make or break a prospective employee – it is also the stage that’ll be embedded in existing employees as to whether they perceive your company to be fair or not. If they believe it to be fair, they become walking brand ambassadors for your company.

5. Offer flexibility

A big thing that makes or breaks an employee is their balance between work and life. While work takes up the majority of the time, employees try to seek time out for their family and friends. By offering flexibility in the forms of part-time work, casual hours or more holiday leave, you allow your employees to balance their lives. With this balance intact, you keep them happy.

6. Pay well

It is a common assumption that payday is better than any other day of the year. Providing an attractive pay rate for your employees lets them know their efforts are worth more than the minimum wage to you. Paying well is what lets your employees access different ways to make them happy through higher disposable incomes.

7. Provide small perks

While high pay is a perk itself, other small perks such as staff discounts to certain places or reimbursements for parking near the company’s office are a few ways to say thank you for being with us. These small perks add up to be big, making them seem all worthwhile on your employee’s end.

8. Re-create your company culture

As a manager, if you envisioned a company of hard work and good fun, you should put them into practice. How you can do this is by providing for this vision by fostering a culture productivity in return for rewards and incentives. It is about putting what you envisioned for the company into practice.

9. Conduct one-on-one interviews

These one-on-one interviews do not necessarily have to be interviewed, but a personal conversation asking why your employee remains in your business or what they want to be changed and/or improved is necessary. Asking these questions during your personal chat will let you see what to change or implement to keep them happy.

10. Offer promotions

Offer promotions where you can. If you believe a particular employee has converted results and you have recognised and rewarded them, it is time to take it up a notch and offer them a promotion. It is this promotion where your employees begin to realise their career progression can happen at your company.

11. Learn to communicate

Constant and clear communication with your employees is a deal breaker for your company. It’s about keeping a relationship with your employees on both a personal and professional level. Having both aspects intact allow you to tap into your employee’s minds and see things the way they see it – hopefully letting you work out what is wrong and right.

12. Re-create your office

Changing the way your office looks with funky new furniture and desks for your employees is one way of letting them know that you care about where they perform. An office environment that’s welcoming, comfortable and attractive is what will help stimulate and bring out the best in your employees.

Employee turnover is inevitable, as employees go through various cycles of their lives trying to figure out their careers. For this reason, it’s neither yours or their fault for this to contribute to your high employee turnover. One thing for sure is we can work towards reducing this number by focusing on those who have lost touch in the company. By doing so, it’s financially and reputably beneficial!